Economy

The driver of Taiwan’s economy is the high personal disposable income of its citizens who demand high quality food, education, and products and services.

Taiwan’s Productivity 4.0 is a US$1.13 billion nine year initiative across key sectors to help build smart diversified production facilities.These sectors inlcude:

IT

transportation

machinery

food and agriculture

Taiwan is one of the most innovative countries in the world measured by numbers of patents lodged and international designs awarded.

Trade

Taiwan is Queensland’s sixth largest export market and its unique relationship with China makes it an important market for Queensland companies.

Taiwan’s close engagement with China, its ageing demographic and need for food and energysecurity will drive opportunities for Queensland in the future. Taiwan is expected to be one of the oldest populations by 2030 requiring sophisticated aged care infrastructure and services.

Currently Taiwan imports almost their entire energy needs. Greater energy security will drive their increasing interest in renewable energy applications in wind, tidal and solar. Alternative fuels, such as biofuels will also become a priority.

Investment

Taiwan is a major investor in mainland China.

Taiwan’s advanced economy is considered a gateway to China and ASEAN, with their multi-billion dollar investment footprint in these countries.

Taiwan opportunities

CurrentMid termLong term

Current

Training

Energy

Fresh food

Processed food

Packaged food and ingredients

Technology

Meat

Mid term

Renewable energy

Organic food

Advanced technology

Premium foods

Long term

Aged care services

Functional food

Robotics

Biofuels

Advanced manufacturing

Sector opportunities in Taiwan

Urban infrastructure

Most of Taiwan’s large cities are undertaking ambitious urban renewal plans for smart cities that will procure a broad range of state of the art goods and services including

Commissioner’s intel: How to take your business to Taiwan

View the videos below, and hear from TIQ’s Trade and Investment Commissioner as he speaks of the opportunities in Taiwan.

Murray Davis: Business trends in Taiwan: Emerging opportunities in the market

Transcript

Thank you for asking me that. I think, when we look at Taiwan in 2016, the biggest single thing that’s happened in quite sometime, has been the election of a new government. There was a new president, the first woman ever elected to be president of Taiwan, took office in May 2016 and has brought in a government with very different priorities to the previous government.

The previous government for eight years, was working consistently to develop stronger links and ties with mainland China. The new government under Tsai Ing-wen has actually been trying to redevelop or re-balance Taiwan’s economic and trade relations with other countries. Now that includes a lot of ASEAN countries but it explicitly includes Australia and New Zealand.

So, there are a range of government incentives and government policies to encourage people to do more business in, it’s called the Go South strategy, okay. So its people are being encouraged to go south instead of north. And this presents, I think, some really good opportunities for people who wanted to capitalise on Australia’s profile.

Because, we are now riding the frame of the Taiwanese government’s new economic development policies and it’s a really good time for Australian businesses to be active in Taiwan.

Murray Davis: Practical tips: Hands on advice for doing business in Taiwan

Transcript

When you come to Taiwan there is a couple of things that you need to consider. Now, firstly, you just need to be prepared so you need to do some research, and you need to work out who you are going to be visiting and what your value proposition is for them. Now this would be the case for any market in the world. When you go into Taiwan their is a couple of things that I would recommend in particular. One of then is just to not make the schedule too busy. Sometimes there can be some delays in traffic and I think you need to leave yourself enough time to just have a look around Taiwan.

There are a couple of major cultural heritage, popular local history things that you just need to see. And if you are trying to build a report, with a Taiwanese buyer or a Taiwanese partner. Their is nothing better than having said to them, “I have just been to see the National Palace Museum where I have seen the treasures that have been saved from mainland China when the nationalists retreated in 1949. Or I’ve been to a local temple, or I’ve been to Taipei, the tallest building in the world. It’s a great way to get to know people.

Transcript

Our merchandise exports to Taiwan are about 1.6$ billion every year, which puts Taiwan ranking at number six out of all our global trading partners, which is quite amazing. In addition to that we have 4000 Taiwanese students every year that come to Queensland to study and ranks about number five for our source countries for international students.

We have 26,000 backpackers who come from Taiwan every year and work all across Queensland in rural communities and in the hospitality industry. Many of them then do convert to students when their working holiday-maker programs conclude. 60,000 tourists come every year and behind all that we’ve the largest diaspora of Taiwanese migrants anywhere in Australia.

So when you add all these things up Taiwan is really one of our most significant trade, investment, cultural, education, partners anywhere in the world. It’s an amazing place please come.

Transcript

Well, we can help in a number of ways. Firstly by providing advice that way there’s likely to be an opportunity for you in Taiwan. Not everybody has an opportunity there. If there is one we will be able to find it for you. We can design a marketing strategy for you, we can design a business program for you, we can accompany you to meetings, and we can facilitate those meetings.

Now, this is not something that’s always the case in every market in the world, but in most Asian markets, people in North Asian markets, to be accompanied by a government official is actually very powerful signal about your credibility. So if you’re looking for an opportunity to leverage Queensland Government support, to show our imprimatur support for you, please get in touch with us.

Come and see us, let us do all that preliminary research, let us structure a program for you. We come with you to the meetings, we can give you government support, and enhance your credibility, we can follow up afterwards and I think we can definitely make a difference for you in Taipei.

Transcript

Taiwan has been a very well established market for a number of food and agriculture projects for many decades. Beef is a very large trade, and Taiwan is I think is our fourth largest export destination for beef. But is also a well established market for grains and pulses and fruit and vegetables and horticulture and a little bit of wine and some organic foods.

I guess what exporters need to be aware of now and I think this is something that Trade & Investment Queensland is very keen to tell exporters about, is that in the last 18 months, Taiwan has experienced some very, very serious public health scandals resulting from contaminated food and some breakdowns in the food safety regime in Taiwan and there’s a tremendous public concern about this.

A lot of people in Taiwan look to Australia, and to Queensland in particular, as a source of clean, green, safe, good quality food. This is a great opportunity to come to us at Trade & Investment Queensland and we’d like to help you grow your business in to Taiwan. Thank you.

Transcript

Queensland is a market that is of great interest to Taiwanese for education. Queensland is the preferred destination for all the Taiwanese who come to Australia, which is about 12,000 a year. More than 4,000 often come to Queensland so we have a very good reputation. It’s well spread from the university sector through vocational education and training.

large numbers have been going to English language training and there is several hundred of them that come study at our high schools. We’re very proud at Trade & Investment Queensland, of Queensland’s premier position among the states and I’d encourage anybody who is wanting to get more students from Taiwan to come and see us we will be very happy to help you grow your business in the Taiwan market.

Transcript

Trade & Investment Queensland has been monitoring a number of trends in Taiwan recently, and we’re very excited with the number of cities in Taiwan who are undertaking very aggressive, radical urban renewal programs. So, anybody who has got a product to do with green building, energy efficient building, electrical grid metering, electric cars; anything that can transform the urban environment will be of great interest to the Taiwanese.

And I’d encourage people to contact me, Trade & Investment Queensland Taiwan, introduce you to some potential buyers and to give you a more detailed briefing of what’s happening in this exciting sector in Taiwan. Thank you.

Transcript

People often ask us at Trade & Investment Queensland for examples of successful companies dealing in different markets. I would like to tell you a story about a company I met that had been dealing in Taiwan for almost 40 years. Their entrance into the market for soybean – they were suppliers of soybean product, came when there was a big drought in the United States, and the buyer in Taiwan didn’t have any supply of soybean, their factory was going to close, it was a disaster.

At very, very short notice they were able to identify this supplier in Toowoomba, not far from Brisbane, who at a very inconvenient time, made a very, very big effort to provide soy to this buyer at a good price through difficult circumstances and the buyer was so grateful that this soy arrived on time and on price, and good quality, that they have continued to trade with this Queensland exporter for more than 40 years.

Now, that exporter went through all sorts of trouble, there was a sars outbreak, there was swine flu, there was bird flu, there was the Asian financial crisis, there was the global financial crisis. All sorts of horrible currency fluctuations that made it difficult. And through that, this buyer because of that one time when they were really helped 40 years ago, has remained loyal to this exporter and they are still trading to this day.

Transcript

Taiwan is a really fascinating market for people to work in. I find that many people who go to Taiwan, it changes their lives. I just think it’s just a wonderfully interesting social environment there. For people that are trading there, I’ve found people that have been working there for up to 40 years trading into that market, and it’s a market where you can build a good relationship with a customer, they will look after you and there’s a tremendous sense of mutual respect and support that can keep people trading.

Sometimes I’ve got people that are down into their third generation of management that are working now. At the same time it’s a very very price sensitive market, you simply cannot be more expensive than the opposition. Over the last few years, with the Australian dollar being very, very high, a number of the companies have actually had to reduce the amount of product they can move into Taiwan but nonetheless, I think that as we move into a new trading environment with a lower Australian dollar, there’ll be some fantastic opportunities for people into Taiwan.

I would also say that it’s a market where you need to understand quite carefully, think about what your product is going to be, how it’s going to be used, because the social environment in Taiwan is different to Australia, people may be using your product in a different way and you do have to be mindful of how the customers are using it.